With Perry on Lake Erie

by James Otis

“Perry, meanwhile, pressed on with the Lawrence, accompanied by the Scorpion, Ariel, and Caledonia; and at meridian exactly, when he supposed he was near enough for execution with his carronades, he opened the first division of his battery on the starboard side of the Detroit. His balls fell short, while his antagonist and her consorts poured upon the Lawrence a heavy storm of round shot from their long guns, still leaving the Scorpion and Ariel almost unnoticed.

“The Caledonia, meanwhile, engaged with the Hunter, but the Niagara kept at a respectful distance from the Queen Charlotte, and gave that vessel an opportunity to go to the assistance of the Detroit. She passed the Hunter, and, placing herself astern of the Detroit, opened heavily upon the Lawrence, now, at a quarter past twelve, only musket-shot distance from her chief antagonist.

“For two hours the gallant Perry and his devoted ship bore the brunt of the battle with twice his force, aided only by the schooners on his weather bow and some feeble shots from the distant Caledonia, when she could spare time from her adversary, the Hunter. During that tempest of war his vessel was terribly shattered. Her rigging was nearly all shot away; her sails were torn in shreds; her spars were battered into splinters; her guns were dismounted; and she lay upon the waters almost a helpless wreck.

“The carnage on her deck had been terrible. Out of one hundred and three sound men that composed her officers and crew when she went into action, twenty-two were slain and sixty-one were wounded. Perry’s little brother had been struck down by a splinter at his side, but soon recovered....

“While the Lawrence was being thus terribly smitten, officers and crew were anxiously wondering why the Niagara—the swift, stanch, well-manned Niagara—kept aloof, not only from her prescribed antagonist, the Queen Charlotte, now battling the Lawrence, but the other assailants of the flag-ship. Her commander himself had passed the order for close conflict, yet he kept far away; and when afterward censured, he pleaded, in justification of his course, his perfect obedience to the original order to keep at ‘half cable length behind the Caledonia on the line.’ It may be said that his orders to fight the Queen Charlotte, who had left her line and gone into the thickest of the fight with the Lawrence and her supporting schooners, were quite as imperative, and that it was his duty to follow. This he did not do until the guns of the Lawrence became silent, and no signals were displayed by, nor special orders came from Perry. These significant tokens of dissolution doubtless made Elliott believe that the commodore was slain, and he himself had become the chief commander of the squadron.

“He then hailed the Caledonia, and ordered Lieutenant Turner to leave the line and bear down upon the Hunter for close conflict, giving the Niagara a chance to pass for the relief of the Lawrence. The gallant Turner instantly obeyed, and the Caledonia fought her adversary nobly. The Niagara spread her canvas before a freshening breeze that had just sprung up; but, instead of going to the relief of the Lawrence, thus silently pleading for protection, she bore away toward the head of the enemy’s squadron, passing the American flag-ship to the windward, and leaving her exposed to the still galling fire of the enemy, because, as was alleged in extenuation of this apparent violation of the rules of naval warfare and the claims of humanity, both squadrons had caught the breeze and moved forward, and left the crippled vessel floating astern.”

It was only by the cessation of the shocks which told of the brig’s having been struck by a ball that we on board knew the enemy was moving forward, leaving us little else than a hulk upon the waters.

Then the smoke of battle which had hung over our decks like a shroud was wafted away by the wind; and we saw the Niagara, half a mile or more on the larboard beam, engaged with the Queen Charlotte, Lady Prevost, and Hunter.

It was as if we had been cast aside as worthless, and that the remainder of the fight would be between those who had suffered less injury.

Perhaps, under another commander, such would have been the case; but Oliver Perry was never one to be cast aside or to shrink from any danger, and it was not in his mind to remain at a distance.